It’s the same sort of pissed-off as when fic­tion makes you cry. It’s the pissed-off that says Why should I deal with this, it exists in a realm out­side of me. Map change time. Then, of a sud­den, it comes sharply into focus and hits you square between the eyes, in a way only depth per­cep­tion can pro­vide. Its scope is sud­denly crys­tallised and defined sharply (not in any way to make ‘relief’ implicit) and it becomes, most def­i­nitely, one’s own prob­lem. One as in son-of-man is not. How’s that for con­vo­luted? The prob­lem lands squarely back on this side of the court, and the frus­tra­tion of it always com­ing back slowly sub­sides. Maybe it’s time to play ball-boy. Not in a temper-tantrum-look-at-me-I-stole-all-the-balls-and-now-try-playing-with-scrunched-up-newspaper-instead-I-dare-you kind of way, either. Def­i­nitely with­out that ele­ment of party-pooper (or extreme hyphen­ation). It’s time to use short, clear sen­tences, speak clearly, avoid­ing the weird­ness of expec­ta­tions of weird­ness [sic. — not a late night typo] and act­ing not as cud­geller but leav­ing the usual imple­ments firmly tied to the ground. By the way, this is not bloody leisure. Don’t delude your­selves into believ­ing this a faisandé — though it is that, in parts, per­haps — it goes beyond arti­fice. Art and pre­tense extend beyond what is known and make man­sos of about half of us (though per­haps to say ‘make’ is an incom­plete ren­der­ing of the prob­lem). But then the artists ‘do a miz­zle’ (look it up, this is slang from 1910 – 30’s, not a prod­uct of all ma homies) and with them their art, and sud­denly… sud­denly what? Sud­denly, we’re (plural first per­son) back to not hav­ing a clue what the way for­ward should be. Leave your paint­ing as a com­pass. Oh, but it is a sculp­ture. Instal­la­tion art. Post-modern crap. Why does true North keep shifting?

At mak­ing one cringe at one’s own awk­ward­ness more than should be nec­es­sary. Regard­less as to how pre­med­i­tated and planned a call may be. Still, it’s bet­ter than rub­bing ink in old wounds (lit­er­ally). Funny how one can progress from bizarre excite­ment at a motif of enthu­si­asm (enthu­si­asm itself notwith­stand­ing with­out some kind of idol to rep­re­sent it), to sad­ness in an opti­mistic way but with­out any means of rec­i­p­ro­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tion that once induced sad­ness (but main­tained opti­mism) for too long such that other awk­ward­ness may ensue, to nearly for­get­ting that in study­ing some­thing too awe­some (I fear too much in an aca­d­e­mic sense), only to return to quiet guilt at not hav­ing rec­i­p­ro­cated pre­vi­ously later in that same gen­eral sense of chronol­ogy (bal­anced against a sense of geo­graph­i­cal guilt in an abstract kind of con­cern for those around whilst being, in mind, com­pletely else­where). Then, after all that, in fool­ish­ness some­thing tran­spired that was quickly regret­ted, but only after some time prop­erly med­i­tat­ing on var­i­ous stu­pidi­ties could any­thing be forth­com­ing. Hence, it is now Thurs­day, and Wednes­day passed with­out reply. Thurs­day will plod onwards, one must sup­pose, as excite­ment for study and work and (shock) social inter­ac­tion is forcibly mus­tered. Which I sup­pose is less excit­ing, then. I would love spon­tene­ity right now but fear it too late… no mat­ter. There will be another time. Oh, and whilst stream­ing con­scious­ness with only aft­wards reflec­tion (I cheated by know­ing what I would try to include in advance in the ear­lier parts, I’m sorry), what was going through their heads when they pro­claimed eter­nity? When the indif­fer­ent pro­claimed eter­nity? What are they pro­claim­ing? What were they think­ing? I want to scream and say what the hell is going on because it’s all so for­eign so strange apply­ing a lan­guage that isn’t theirs, can’t be theirs; his­tor­i­cally has been rejected! But the truths which our grand­fa­thers held are now those which the fight­ers at the out­posts rally against. Oh, yes, very vari­able. You advo­cate free-thought then thought-control then sec­u­lar plu­ral­ism then eter­nity then both at once then you’re not mak­ing sense any­more now are you. Are you? I am hardly immune to the allure of rebel­lion. Ibsen wrote not lit­er­a­ture of the rev­o­lu­tion per se but veered close to it at times. You… no, of course not. There was no con­vic­tion in that gaze. Ephemeral humour of the melan­cholic vari­ety per­vades that being with­out direc­tion. Oh, Ninevah – do I wish it thus? Pray not. Please not. You, too. Please. It would make cer­tain attach­ments that much eas­ier to bear; con­fi­dence in… well, it is not for me to know any­more. My fault bears heav­ily enough upon me even though I have thought to have rev­elled in it. Reviled is closer to how, prob­a­bly, things should have tran­spired. Please free me. Pre­serve them; give them what you have already in power. So far away, now. I can bearly see yet look regard­less, squint­ing to make out some­thing. Look for­ward. Uncon­di­tional unfail­ing immov­able; all I am not. Please end the guilt’s cause.

I was doing really well try­ing not to think about any time other than now/future, until some­one asked for some­thing (past) to be changed. Which of course meant observ­ing other things from the past, which of course meant remem­ber­ing every­thing asso­ci­ated with those times. It’s just a slip in sen­ti­ment, that’s all. Don’t over-analyse the word ‘nos­tal­gia’, its ety­molo­gies, pop­u­lar cul­ture allu­sions (in an inverse aeti­o­log­i­cal sense, mean­ing I thought of it first and then dis­cov­ered sim­i­lar foun­da­tions else­where), and all pos­si­ble mean­ings (I can think of only two) in its usage. Any­way, it was entirely acci­den­tal. It’s not as though I stood there throw­ing taunts at some mad­dened, blind cyclops, reveal­ing iden­ti­ties boast­fully as the impi­ous brute runs cry­ing to its father. No: con­ve­nient mytho­log­i­cal expla­na­tions for any of this are decid­edly thin on the ground.

They show what is falling apart, what’s falling to pieces, dis­in­te­grat­ing. There’s hardly any­thing new about a lack of bal­ance, really. Always in absolutes. Well, maybe not. It used to be that way until… every­thing seems grey, now. [I need a new word for] mediocre. A vocab­u­lary dis­tin­guished by medioc­racy? Yes, even that jaded front is recog­nised, now. And if that is indica­tive of the best, of what one is pre­pared to put on dis­play, what hope is there for every­thing beneath that? They see through, one by one. Some dis­tance them­selves; oth­ers, pro­ceed­ing with cau­tion, ready to detach them­selves at any moment. Still oth­ers have not paused long enough to note it’s extrin­sic fail­ings, and travel onwards blindly.

~

Always ask­ing too many ques­tions. Mov­ing on some­where, rest­less, never con­tent to stop even for a moment and enjoy every­thing that’s been given. Not that the alter­na­tive is blind sub­mis­sion out of recre­ancy; just to trust, a lit­tle, to take stock and realise that there is so much here already. Why the nomadism? It is anti-acquisitive, but to say that is to sug­gest things are left behind… this fails to account for acqui­si­tion by destruc­tion. There is a burn­ing pat­tern denot­ing a path, the fire spread­ing fur­ther away at the edges. Revers­ing may, strangely, have the oppo­site effect; quench­ing the fire as though by back-burning. Exhausted of fuel, it will (per­haps) find com­fort amongst the ashes. Life, again, may even spring forth. Partheno­gen­e­sis trig­gered by heat? Ah, a flawed con­cept. Why would life return to that land?

~

It may. Once the car­cino­genic effu­sion sub­sides, mov­ing off into the dis­tance, recov­ery might com­mence. But that burn­ing one will never rest (or observe this, far beyond its wake), mov­ing for­ever onwards [until a vast body of water that quenches its very being and ends the path of destruc­tion that spread towards the sea]. It would not do to end on a question.